Astroboy in Asia

Mom and Dad visit Japan

2007-09-08T19:57:00.000+09:00

Back tracking and playing catchup a lot... mom and dad made it to Japan!... last April. Of course it was awesome to see them, since it'd been awhile. They arrived at the airport without too much trouble, other than a cranky American immigration officer harassing them in Winnipeg and some problems sorting the cash machine out (if you don't remove your cash from the slot quickly enough, it will close and your money will be gone). Wisely, they rented a cell phone in case they got lost.

Here we are at in front of the airport! I opted to take my parents to my place on the bus, so they would have a cool view of Tokyo.

Here's a photo shot from the bus. They seems interested by the city as they tried not to fall asleep.

By the time we got near my place, it was getting dark. The neon lights must've been shocking compared to small-town Canada!

Bikes are a popular thing here.

Here we are near my home the next day.

There I am; posing on the street.

On my parents first day in Japan, I left them to fend for themselves as I went off to work.

Gan-butt-eh (Good luck!) mom and dad! You're alone in the most populated city in the world!

China

2007-06-03T22:50:00.001+09:00

Look forward to an absolute TON of photos from parts of Japan and China soon. I'll try not to go as picture happy as I did with Kyoto. Here's a teaser pic from West Lake in Hangzhou...

Ochanomizu Station

2007-06-03T22:40:00.000+09:00

I thought I'd share a couple photos of one of the cooler-looking train stations in Tokyo; Ochanomizu Station.

Here's the orange-coloured Chuo-line train, with the skycrapers of Iidabashi in the background.

Here's a shot of the station itself.

BTW, some people might be wondering why I haven't posted in a while, or talked about my girlfriend (6 months now...) or even mentioned where I work. Well, I just don't feel the need; especially regarding where I work. I teach English in Tokyo, but beyond that I just won't say. There are enough people around who read blogs on the net that I'd rather not get caught saying something critical about who I work with/for... at least until after I have new people I work with or for. My family and friend all know where I am, or would if they asked. ;) As for not posting much... well, I'm just lazy. I've seen so many temples, shrines, trees, Asian people picking their noses, etc., in the past two plus years that I just don't feel like taking pictures of and talking about them all. I might get into the habit of updating often again, and I hope I do, but we'll just have to wait and see how energetic I get about it. I will post picture and talk about where I go on my travels, as that's always interesting to someone (probably me in 10 years time).

Cheers, and happy reading/picture viewing!

KFC: Shaking hands with the Colonel

2007-06-03T22:34:00.000+09:00

Just a funny picture of my meeting Colonel Sanders at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Oji, Tokyo.

Nice to meet you, too!

If you zoom in, you'll see what of the biggest problems with fashion in Asia... older ladies who seem to think that coloring their hair any colour of the rainbow is a bright idea (pun intended).

Tokyo Disneyland

2007-04-01T22:12:00.000+09:00

Tokyo Disneyland

Back in January, Hiromi and I took a day trip to Tokyo Disneyland. If you've been to the Magic Kingdom in any other of the Disney theme parks, then you've basically been here. It's not much different, other than the restaurants having a much wider selection of sushi and curry-rice than the other incarnations of Disney.

Behold, the ironic commercial glory of Cinderella's castle at night!

Let's go see Mickey! We're going to Disneyland!!!

Ahhhhh, Tokyo in the winter... kind of makes me miss the snowy frozenness of snowy Canada.

Another entrance? Oh well, it's Disneyland!!!

European(!?) shopping at its finest.

Think Cinderella is in there? I need my apartment cleaned.

Space mountain!!!... (closed for maintenance)

Splash Mountain!

The Wild West! I think that's Big Thunder Mountain.

More Wild West!

It was all pretty and stuff at night.

That's all folks!

Kyoto

2007-01-01T22:21:00.000+09:00

Happy new year. I didn't break a leg this time.

Kyoto

For Christmas break this year, I decided to venture out to Kyoto; the old capital city of Japan. Basically, I walked around for four days and saw enough temples and gardens to last for seven lifetimes! I took the shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Kyoto. The trip was about 3 hours, and cost a little over 13,000 yen. The shinkansen, like the KTX in Korea, travels at around 300 km/h. It doesn't feel that fast when you're in the train though. I was happy to have a window seat on the north side of the train, so I had a great view of Mt. Fuji.

Day 1

The first day consisted of my waking up, going to Tokyo Station, paying a bunch of money for a train ticket, riding to Kyoto, and exploring the area around Kyoto Station.

This is Mount Fuji. I hear it's famous in Japan.

Not a bad view, eh?

I took the 'SuperExpress Nozomi' train. They say it's the fastest bullet train, because it doesn't stop at many stations. There were only two stops between Tokyo and Kyoto; Yokohama and Nagoya. I managed to take a couple pics of some Nagoya buildings. Here's one...

...and here's the other!

My friend, Sheila, told me to stay here, at Toji-an guest house. So, I did. For 2000 yen a night, it was okay. This place would be better in warmer weather, though. There was a small room with a couple of computers (150 yen for 15 minutes. What a rip-off!!!), a small common room with a kotatsu (table with a heater inside and a blanket around it. You sit under it, with the blanket over you lap, and it keeps you toasty warm), and a few bunk bed rooms. The room where I was was bloody cold. Houses in Japan generally don't have insulation, but this room was extremely cold. Probably the fact that nobody could figure out the space heater had something to do with it. Anyway, every night there were a lot of other travelers hanging in the common room and drinking (beer, soju, sake, whiskey, etc.), so that was a lot of fun. That is really the good thing about this place; that you can meet lots of people and have some fun. Most people seemed to be Japanese or Korean, although there were a few Germans, French, Brits, etc. there. I came across a couple of Americans who were teaching English in Korea who had nowhere to stay, and invited them down. They only stayed one night (if they even stayed for that! I don't know if they ever did come back from the bars or not.). Anyway, there's a link to their website: Toji-an Guesthouse.

This is at Toji temple. This pagoda is the highest in Japan, and is the sixth version of the same one. The previous 5 all burned down. This version was built in 1643. The guesthouse where I stayed is one block from here.

Here, you can see how a temple looks along side a modern city street. Wow!!! It's incredible!!!

This temple was just renovated.

This temple is still being renovated. As you can see, whatever is inside that thing is large!

This guy couldn't wait until 2011 for the renovations to be complete, so he just took a picture of the picture. :)

Here is it, the (not so) famous Kyoto Tower! Behold, it's splendor!

Anyway, up the tower I went (fee included...). Wow, this really was a cool view! You can even see Osaka in the distance. I was impressed.

By this point, I had a couple of travel companions; two American English teachers from Korea. We set out to explore the Gion area, where the bars and nightclubs are. Apparently, this is also the area where geisha entertain their clients.

This was a cool little shrine tucked away between come buildings.

I took a picture of the moon. Then I barked at the moon and went crazy train, just like Ozzy.

I don't remember taking this picture. I must've had fun! Just like Ozzy!

Day 2

On this day, I made my way to southern Higashiyama, where most of the famous stuff in Kyoto is.

This street is looking onto Heian Shrine, and it's massive torii gate.

Here's a closer look at the gate.

This is the gate to Heian Shrine. It was built in 1895 to commemorate the 1100th anniversary of the founding of Kyoto. The buildings at this shrine are 2/3 replicas of the Imperial Palace of the Heian period (794-1185) (following this period, the capital was moved to Kamakura up until the 14th century).

A view of the other side of the torii gate, as well as the back side of a girl dressed as a geisha, who seemed to be seeking attention.

Hey, it looks good to me!

The right side.

The left side.

The top of one of the towers.

A covered bridge within the gardens.

Here's the impressive gate to Chion-in Temple. It was huge.

A graveyard.

This was an eeiry Buddha statue.

This was a big Buddha statue!

Wow.

I love this scene.

The Kyoto skyline.

Classic Japan, isn't it?

This is the entrance to Kiyomizu temple, one of the most famous temples in Japan. It's currently being nominated for of of the 'new 7 wonders of the world.' The group that is doing this promotion is holding a massive online vote, to decide what the new 7 wonders should be. Feel free to cast your vote. :)

Looking onto Kyoto from Kiyomizu.

Beautiful.

I love it.

Geez, I hope that doesn't fall down.

Fire is bad, fire is bad, fire is bad...

What a scene! This poor guy needs a lovely lady to sit in his rickshaw.

Christmas oranges!

I'm not going to write any more comments for these pics, unless I have something other to say than, "wow" or "awesome."

Sexy. :D

...

I like the contrast from old (temple on the right) to new (everything else).

Day 3

Day 3, continuing along with my Higashiyama tour, saw me walking around in Northern Higashiyama.

This gate, called Sanmon gate, leads into Nanzen-ji temple.

Here's Sosui aqueduct, which once acted as a train bridge. It was a pretty cool sight.

Through Sosui aqueduct, behind Nanzen-ji, and around the back corner of the grounds lies this path; leading to what became my favourite spot in Kyoto. The path leads to a serene little water shrine called Nanzen-ji Oku-no-in. It features a cute little shine and a little waterfall behind it on a mountain trail. It was breathtaking in the snow.

Up the steps...

I was one of only three people that I saw at this shrine. It was a chilly day, so that would explain the absense of people.

This has to be one of the most beautiful scenes in all of Japan.

Here's the little waterfall; directed from a mountain stream.

Apparently the local monks like to stand under this thing in prayer. I guess they prey that they won't catch cold...

Smrt as I am, I thought it'd be a bright idea to get myself wet in the freezing temperatures. I'm from Canada, so this was like a warm spring day to me. :)

If I ever get sick of Japan, I can just look at these pictures to cheer me up.

This is a scene from Eikan-do Temple.

Quite pretty!

The old artwork inside the buildings was very nice.

This is Ginkaku-ji (The Silver Pavilion). The original plans held for this places to be covered in silver, but it never happened.

The sand designs were interesting.

This place is called Fushima Inari-Taisha. It's famous for its thousands and thousands of torii gates. If you've seen the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, then you've seen this place.

There are literally trails like this that go on for kilometres, completely covered by torii gates.

They even give you a choice!

Every now and then, the trails of gates opens up to souvenir shops (where you can buy a walking stick like these ones), small restaurants, restrooms, etc.

As you can see, there are trails that are 4 km long... of torii gates! Insane...

Day 4

Here is Sanjusangen-do. It houses over 1000 statues of the Buddhist goddess of mercy.

It's big.

There are many, many statues in here. There was probably a sign saying "no photos allowed", but I took one anyway.

This is one of the most famous places in Japan; Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion). It's, well... it's covered in gold.

It's also covered in a bit of snow from the day before.

It's a waterfall.

From Kingaku-ji, I headed for west Kyoto; to Arashiyama. This little place is called Honomiya-jinja. It's famous because it's mentioned in the book, "Tale of the Genji."

This cute little garden is at the shrine mentioned above.

Just a scene.

A train going into the mountain.

Here are the bamboo groves that Kyoto is known for.

They are pretty indeed.

Oh, wow, it's tourists! A shocking thing to see.

Cool house.

Some tourists riding a rikushaw next to a field.

The same field.

Let's have a look at the memu...

Pretty, like so many other things around Kyoto.

This house is called Rakushisha. A famous poet, who's name now eludes me, lived out his life here.

Behold! The bamboo of Kyoto!

Trip home last August

2006-12-25T19:14:00.000+09:00

August 2006: Visiting home in Canada

So, in August I took my first trip home in nearly a year and a half. It was like a breath of fresh air, being able to see my parents, sisters, grandparents, a few of my old friends again and my old stomping grounds. Since I was to start training for a new teaching job the day after I got back, and more so because I'd made my travel plans before quitting my old job, my trip was only a bit longer than a week and a half. Still, it was nice.

Following a flight (maybe around 12 hours, I forget completely) to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and then transferring to International Falls, Minnesota, I met my parents and one of my sisters at the airport for a two hour ride home. The flight from Minneapolis to International Falls was interesting because I ended up sitting beside my old aikido sensei. It goes to show, just how rural the area where I come from is!

For the most part, I just did a lot of visiting, lying around, and checking out the old house, cabin, lake, and taking a side trip to Kenora, Ontario, with my good friend, Mike. At the end, we drove to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to drop my sister off at her apartment for school, and for my to catch a flight back to Tokyo.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

The Cabin

This is in front of the family cabin. A good place for a nap!

Here's my father's giant truck. There definitely aren't many trucks this large in Korea or Japan. That's my grandfather (dad's side) and mum near the car.

A couple of canoes that we have. I love canoing!!!

A view of the lake.

There's dad. My must be thinking about having a beer by the fire. :)

Ye old shithouse, how I love thee.

Yes, someone really did paint it green inside. Mum?

There's Tysanne, the dog, wondering why I still smell like kimchi. She seems to be keeping her distance. Who likes the smell of kimchi anyway, other than Koreans (all Japanese are part Korean anyway, even if they won't admit it to even themselves. ;) )?

This is from inside the cabin.

The lakeside porch.

This is on the point of our property.

Here's Tysanne, doing some good scouting work. Good work dog, you'll find some Pokemon in that lake yet!!! Gotta catch 'em all!

A man behind a steering wheel. This is the natural order of things.

Here's Rhia, Tysanne and mum.

Some people own their own freakin' airplanes here!

I like trees.

I also like sun rays.

Islands are sweet, too.

Here's the cabin! That strange metal contraption in the water is called a boat lift. You put the boat on there, crank up the cable, and it lifts the boat out of the water. It saves the boat from banging up against things like nemesing docks and the like.

Kenora

Me and my buddy Mike...

(me and Mike)

...went on a small road trip to Kenora, about an hour and a half from Dryden. He was one of my best friends in Dryden, and my best friend in high school. It was awesome to hang out with him again!

Somewhere in downtown Kenora. It's a nice town in the summer.

It's nice. Nice I say!

The vehicles are so big!

Some people where I'm from say this isn't a nice town, but they are wrong. Other than the drunken locals lining up in front of the liquor store once a month when their treaty cheques come in (I'm not being racist, it's the truth. Sioux Lookout is even worse), and then running around drunk every Friday and Saturday night, it's a beautiful place.

Hey, you can even park your plane here and go shopping!

ROOOOAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

For a town of around 15,000 people in the center of Canada, I was amused by the high ratio of Chinese restaurants (and a shop). I don't even know if four Chinese people live here, but there are four Chinese businesses that I found. Ho-Ho's is a Chinese restaurant chain in northwestern
Ontario. The buffet is okay, I guess. After some beer, it's better than okay.

I wandered into this Chinese furniture store. It's owned by a guy who's daughter's been teaching ESL in China for a past decade or so (haha, the music on the Naruto soundtrack I'm listening to just made me laugh :D ). She keeps shipping stuff on a container ship, and he puts it in his store and tries to sell it. I wished him good luck. I think he'll need it. It had a lot of cool stuff though...

I can't say anything about this place, because I've never been here. All I can say is that it can't be all bad, as it's licenced for alcohol!

After having eaten at Chinese restaurants in Canada, America, South Korea and Japan, and finding them all to be different (well, the Canadian and American ones are the same), I am really curious to go to China and see just what the hell Chinese food really is.

Kenora is a town with quite a few mural paintings on the buildings. I think they look awesome.

I wanna be a voyageur!

I wanna be in the fur trade and shoot people!

A view of the town from across the water.

It's Husky the Muskie, and Mike!

This is a very large root beer.

Mike's House

Mike bought a house! Yay, Mike!

It's a sweet basement of hockey goodness.

Where's the Pronger Ducks jersey?

Sweet...

My (parent's) House

I lived here for many years. From 1991-1999, plus a few months here and there.

Grandma and grandpa and grandma and grandpa...

The backyard, where the dog does play.

The back deck, where the mother does sleep.

Kelsey and dad.

A small party we had. Beer is so good, beer is so good...

C'est fin.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T19:12:00.000+09:00

Merry Christmas

I celebrated by going to a Lutheran church in Tokyo for a candlelight service, and then out for Korean BBQ after.

Peace and God bless to all!

What's this?

2006-10-30T03:39:00.000+09:00

Oh yeah, I have a blog. Brilliant!

Maybe I should update it sometime soon, now that I have the internet at home again... and actually have a home again (somewhere in West-Tokyo)... and actually have a job so that I can pay for the internet again.

Right. OK. I'll get right on that. Right. Chop, chop.

Earthquake

2006-08-31T20:49:00.000+09:00

I'm back in Japan after spending a bit of time in Canada. I'll throw up pictures soon.

In the meantime, today I felt my strongest earthquake yet. It was a 4.8 on the Richter scale, with the epi-centre right under Tokyo Bay. I haven't heard of any major damage or anything, so I guess all is well. The building I was doing a teaching course in really shook. It felt cool. I kind of liked it.

:)

Time for bed now, as it's 8:30pm and the jet lag has been making me feel tired since I woke up this morning.

Jet lag, eh?

2006-08-19T20:42:00.000+09:00

Bloody jet lag.

After a year and a half, I am in Canada on a short vacation. It's 6:30am, and I have been up since 4. I fell asleep sometime after dinner last night; too tired to visit with my grandparents who I haven't seen in something like two years.

Maybe I'll go for a bike ride. Cool.

Japan Sinks!

2006-08-12T17:03:00.000+09:00

Nihon Chinbotsu 日本沈没　is the name of the movie that I watched last night. I went to the theatre with one of my German friends here, and he wanted to see this Japanese disaster movie. It is based on an over 30-year old book that tells the same story.

Basically, the movie starts out with a large earthquake. While not an out of place event for Japan, it is discovered that the tectonic plates under Japan are undergoing some major movements. The result is that Japan is literally going to sink into the ocean in just under a year. During this year, there are to be a large number of huge volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that will sink the country into the Pacific Ocean. This is not unlike the spree of disaster movies that came out of Hollywood in recent years.

Of course, they added a couple of love stories to the movie (which bored me). At times, this movie felt a bit like a Korean drama; with a man and woman crying in each others arms for what felt like an eternity. As well, the Japanese prime minister instructed the population to leave the country. There were scenes of people fleeing by all types of planes and boats. I was interested to see the distruction of a number of places in Japan where I have already been to (Fukuoka, Tokyo, etc.). They made sure to showcase different famous places in Japan being buried under lava, falling into the ocean, crumbling down, etc.

The movie was, of course, completely in Japanese. Not knowing much of the language wasn't a problem for me though, as I was able to follow along with the context (and a few key words which I already knew). My German friend knows the language, and made sure to fill me in on some of the story that I might not have caught on my own. Overall though, because this was a very visual movie, I would've been fine with no commentary at all.

Other then the emotional scenes, it was a pretty cool movie.

Hey, I've been up the building before! See you later Fukuoka...

Bye-bye Sapporo.

Isn't the top of the tower supposed to be, you know, at the top?

Looks like Kagoshima to me.

Kyoto is no more.

The Tempest

2006-08-12T14:22:00.000+09:00

There was a pretty loud and rainy thunderstorm today, and I took a few pictures of what it like where I am staying.

Look at time coming down! This scene reminds me of The Karate Kid: Part II, when they are in a typhoon in Okinawa. Actually, I typhoon just did come through here.

Cool, eh?

After the storm, some fire trucks went by with their sirens blaring. I guess the lightning must've caused a fire nearby.

Nagatoro

2006-08-11T15:23:00.000+09:00

Nagatoro

Nagatoro is in the Chichibu region in central Saitama prefecture. It's probably two or two and a half hours from central Tokyo. It's definitely out in the Japanese countryside. It's a nice area, as it's out of the Kanto valley. It's into some mountains, with the largest in the area being Mt. Hodo (about 150 metres). Through this area runs the Ara River, which has carved out a gorge though the hills. Of course, there are also plenty of temples and shrines in the area.

The Ara River features some rapids, which has made it a popular spot for canoing, rafting, and boating. Quite a few people go swimming in the calmer areas as well. Canoes are available to rent, and there are 30 minute and 1 hour boat and raft trips available as well. I'm not sure if there are longer trips or not, but there might be.

The Ara River, and the gorge which it runs through.

A temple in the Chichibu region.

Same area.

A lovely old-looking street.

Here is Nagatoro station. It's quite the contrast to something like Shinjuku station!

A street in Nagatoro; looking onto Mt. Hodo.

Looking out from a local temple.

A local temple at Nagatoro.

Nana, who was with me, and I, opted to ride on this yakata-bune.

It was directed by this guy in the sweet hat in the front...

...and oared by this sturdy-looking guy in the back.

We did get splashed a few times, but not too badly. I think this was Oyahana Bridge in the background.

Some people were really enjoying cooling off in the water! Looks like fun!

I took this quick picture of a cool looking house on the river bank.

Looking down the river at some of the hills in the distance.

Yee-Haw!

Here's a strong looking rock, jutting out of the clear water.

Go Nana Go!

Here's a good of one of the Yakata-bune (pronunced, boon-eh).

One of the walls of the gorge.

A quaint looking street in Nagatoro.

This is looking towards the river.

We ate lunch at a restaurant (Nana had vegtable udon soup, while I had curry udon soup), where this bird's nest was above the door.

After lunch, we took a cable car up Mt. Hodo. Unfortunatly, I forgot to take a picture of the cable car. It was fairly large, as it could hold around 30 people.

This is looking into the valley from where the cable car goes to.

At the summit of the hill are some stairs, which let to this ttori...

...which lead to this shrine.

While at the top, I managed to take a few photographs of the awesome scenery.

Another view.

Here is the main shrine at Mt. Hodo, at the base.

This ttori looked very nice, with the gold trim.

Here is the shine itself.

Beer from a Vending Machine

2006-08-11T00:47:00.001+09:00

Just to confirm for those who don't believe; yes, you really can buy beer out of a vending machine Japan. Although it is not as common as I would like, they do exist. A regular sized can of Sapporo Draft is ￥200. You can also buy cigarettes for ￥300-￥400 a pack. These types of machines all close down at night, in order to stop underaged people from buying them after the sun has gone down...

High school boy: What's that you say sir, I need to be 20 years old to buy this 6-pack of beer?
Store clerk: That's right. You cannot drink alcohol in Japan until you are 20 years of age.

5 minutes later...

High school boy: Sugoi!!!!!!! A beer vending machine! YOSH!!!

Parade

2006-08-11T00:22:00.000+09:00

Here's some pictures I took of a random parade that was going on in Minami-Urawa, in Saitama City. Note the crazy wig on the drummer.

Kamakura

2006-08-09T15:57:00.000+09:00

Kamakura

Kamakura, located just west of Tokyo, past Yokohama, is one of the ancient capital cities of Japan. As a result, the city is filled with many old temples, shrines and other interesting sites. In this way, it is similar to Gyeongju in Korea. It is sometimes referred to as the Kyoto of eastern Japan.

Kamakura was established as Japan's capital with Emperor Minamoto in 1192, after a series of wars with formers powers from what is now knows as Kyoto and Nara. It's power lasted for over 1000 years, into the 14th century. One of the main reasons for it's fall was a lack of finances, due to money spent successfully (largely due to stormy seas) defending Japan against invading Mongol hordes. The capital was eventually re-established at Kyoto.

I visited here in late June, with my friend Nana. It is an exceptionally beautiful city, with lots to see. It's less than an hour from central Tokyo.

This bronze statue of Buddha, standing at over 13 metres tall, is the most famous site in Kamakura. It's the second largest statue of Buddha in Japan, and was originally built in 1252. It was housed inside a temple. Unfortunately, and amazingly, the temple was destroyed in a tsunami near the end of the 1400s. This was incredible to me, because it really isn't that close to the ocean. It is probably a kilometre or two away, from what I could tell. It's hard to imagine how powerful the ocean can be, even after watching the videos of the December 2004 tsunami in SE Asia.

In the back of the statue, there is a door where you can enter the statue from. It's completely hollow, and there is a charge of 20 yen to go inside. Inside the Buddha, it was extremely hot. What was interesting was that you could see how the statue was re-enforced with plaster and other materials over the years.

Much of this area is mountain, as we are beginning to get into the foothills of the mountains that are home to Mt. Fuji. The population here isn't nearly as dense as it is in the Tokyo metro, which is nice. There are more hiking areas, as well as more insects to go with it. ;) It is a brilliant area. The bamboo trees were expecially interesting to me.

Here is a stream near one of the many temples in the area. A hallmark of many Buddhist temples is that they are often built near a stream or river.

These drainage ditches are even interesting to me, as they are much different than what I'm used to seeing in Canada.

These temple grounds were quite large and impressive, although they weren't as large as somewhere like Tongdosa in Korea.

One of the enterence gates.

A traditional grass building. Most impressive!

The cemetaries were a sight to behold as well, with moss growing on the old stone graves. They had quite the mystical aura about them.

Most graves in Japan, according to Nana, contain the bones of the deceased. They are generally cremated until only their bones are left, and then buried.

This staircase was in the cemetary, and I thought it looked very cool. So, I took a picture.

This is a common site around Buddhist cemetaries; an idol which is often prayed to and has offerings (booze, food, flowers, etc.) left in front of it.

I think those are small grave markers on the side of that wall. The lush vegetation of the area has turned much of the rock and graves a green colour.

A few statues of kami (gods). I am not exactly sure of their purpose as idols.

Another statue of some sort of kami.

Walking between the different temples sometimes gave us nice views of the town below.

Here is another picture of a grass-roofed house. I cannot remember if this is the same house as before.

I had to lean over a small cliff to take this shot... but what a brilliant view this turned out to be!

I thought this rock face looked impressive.

Everything, such as this cemetary, seems to be built on the side of a hill. It almost reminds me of Boot Hill cemetary in Sturgis, South Dakota, USA. Okay, not really...

Between some of the temples, we managed to get some hiking in. We walked for about an hour in the forest, until we came out.

Here is an interesting area. We walked through a cave to get here, and came out to a smoke-filled shrine area. There were shine shops, selling incense, candles and the lick, a bunch of small, idol-filled, shines where praying could be done, and a cave with wells and fountains where you would wash your money.

There were also some restaurants in the area, which we took advantage of.

The same area.

Some of the shops, selling shine goods.

This lead to a cave. I forget if it was the one that we came in from, or if it is the money washing cave.

Here is the area to wash your money at. People would put their bills in a small basket, pour water on them, and then dry the money with a candle. I guess it is supposed to make the money 'pure'...

From the money cave area, we found our way to the large Buddha statue.

It was an imposing site.

Someone offered to take our picture. Nana is on the left. :P

A cool picture of a pagota nested amounst some trees.

Next, we went to a large shrine that is famous for it's flower gardens. This flowers were cool to see, as they floated on the water.

Aren't Japanese gardens beautiful when they are done up like this?

In English, this is known as a 'waterfall.' Okay class, repeat after me...

Here, you could buy a small statue of Buddha, and place it here... just a few metres from where you bought it.

To each their own I guess. I don't really get it.

Well, I guess it does look kind of cool; in a million Buddha statues sort of way.

One of many, many, many, many, many temple buildings in the area. There were a ton of people lined up here to see this season's flowers in bloom.

A great shot of Kamakura, with the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

Okay, back the the flower garden!

Here is a side street in Kamakura. As in much of Japan, it is extremely clean. Even the areas where traveller's never really go to are fairly well kept up in this country. Of course, they don't always look this good. Fukuoka is still the cleanest city that I've been to... or maybe I am just jaded.

Here is an unfamiliar sight for me; a rickshaw. These were apparently quite popular here in the past, but are now mainly just used in tourist areas.

A ttori gate leading to the temple, which was under renovation, in the background.

I really have a thing for these types of bridges. I think they look awesome.

There were many stairs to climb, before reaching this temple.

Hopefully I'll update about my life recently. I've been fairly busy lately. As you may have gathered from my last few posts, I was becoming more and more disenchated with my job. Well, it all came to a head and I quit. I will be working at Shane English School, in Tokyo, starting in September. The best part is that it has 35 days of holiday per year, mostly in blocks of a week or more. So, there will be enough chances for trips here and there. My work will be more like what I was doing in Korea; with smaller classes and 'normal' work days of 8-9 hours (as opposed to 12-14, as I was doing!!!!!). I have already finished most of my training this month. I left my old apartment, and am now living in a guest house until I get my own apartment. That will probably be in October, I think. I want to wait until things settle down a bit before putting down key money for a new place.

I will be heading to Canada, to see my family and some old friends, next week. I'll be there for just under two weeks. When I come back, I will be ready to start my new job. I am also thinking of buying a scooter (that will definitely make some things easier!). I'm looking at 50cc models right now, because I can ride one with only a regular driver's license. For anything larger than 50cc, I need a motorcycle license. Maybe I will challenge the test sometime in the future.

A Rude Awakening

2006-07-13T10:36:00.000+09:00

Well, the first term here at the Lutheran School in Japan has come to an end. The tests are all finished, and the marks are turned in. Everything finished up last Wednesday (yesterday). Yet, today is Thursday and I'm still here.

I woke up this morning to a phone call at 8:15. It was one of the head teachers (there are many head teachers), asking why I wasn't at school. I think I just mumbled something incoherent. At any rate, I was told that I had to come ASAP. I arrived about about quarter after 10. I made sure to have a nice warn shower and breakfast before leaving, as I was not in the best of moods. The left over spaghetti and beer ;) warmed up my spirits a bit. From there, I threw on a pair of jeans (my slacks were in the wash) and a shirt, and hopped on the train; arriving at school dripping sweat from the humidity. Nobody noticed or questioned my late arrival.

There are parent-teacher meetings today, Friday and on Tuesday and Wednesday (the 19th) (Monday is a random national holiday). Yet, my only scheduled meeting is for one hour on Tuesday afternoon. When I asked what I should be doing, I was told 'do whatever you want' (which means: look pretty, but don't leave the school). Of course, I can make some unit plans for the second term, as well as update my much neglected blog. All is not lost.

As for tomorrow, I told the head teacher of my department that I wouldn't be here. I still need to pick up my plane tickets for Canada in August, deposit some money in the bank, and I'll buy some books and souvenirs as well. Since Monday is a holiday, some places are closed (ie. banks). Fortunately, the head of the department understood the situation and gave me permission to miss tomorrow. I was a little worried I'd have to go AWOL, just to pick up a plane ticket.

Overall, it's been very busy at work since the term began in April. I'm not an assistant teacher, I'm a full co-teacher with the Japanese teacher of the corresponding class. As such, I am preparing all of the term plans, class plans, and do much of the marking (I mark on speaking and listening, the J-teacher marks on reading and writing, and we both give marks for attitudes). Because I'm teaching grades 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11, I have been very busy (in the 8th grade, I'm an ALT; meaning that I just help out in class. I'm not responsible for any planning or marking for that grade. The J-teacher isn't responsible for any planning in the other grades). The other foreign teacher is teaching the grades that I don't, aside from grade 10 and 11; which we split. In each grade, there are two classes of 30 students (give or take a few). That makes around 60 students to teach and mark in teach grade in elementary school. Since high school is split, I teach two classes of around 15 students. Grade 12 does not have a foreign English teacher. Their focus is on studying for their university enterance exams.

The Japanese put way too much focus on these things. Basically, their entire pre-university schooling funnels down to this test. The pressure can be devastating for some students. Every year, there are stories of students committing suicide because they fear these tests so much, or because they had a low score. While in Japan (this is true in Korea as well), I've noticed that too much emphesis is put on how one does on tests, and not enough on life experiences. The grade 12s here, in addition to recieving no English instruction from a foreign teacher, are not allowed to participate in any school events (aside from graduation). On the sports day that we had a couple of months ago, the grade twelves were not present. Soon, our students will either go on a summer trip to America, or take part in a summer study at a mountain school (a classroon-equipped resort a couple hours from here) that the school owns. Again, the grade twelve students cannot participate. I find this to be an absolutely horrible situation. It's saddening that society here places more emphesis on a number on a piece of paper, than on experiences.

During this term, there have been many events which have kept me very busy. The first major thing was a visit from a couple of professors from Concordia College in California. I was the main contact between them and Japan. I was also responsible for putting together their schedule (English version). That kept me on my toes. Following that, we had some students (5) and a couple of chaperones visit us from Phoenix (which Phoenix). They homestayed (yes, I made a verb out of homestay) with the families of some students here, on their 10 day visit. They'll be returning the favour with some of our students (including myself and the other two leaders) in Phoenix this summer (we'll be staying at a hotel when we visit the Grand Canyon for a couple of days).

Speaking of this summer trip to America; I am one of three chaperones for this. Myself, along with Carl and a J-teacher, will be spending about four weeks with 21 students (from grade 9, 10 and 11) in the American southwest. We'll be staying at the dormitories at Concordia college near Anaheim, California (in the LA area) for a couple of weeks, and then doing homestays with some church members in Phoeniz, Arizona. The main purpose is to expose these students to Christianity, and also to American culture (including English). We'll be doing plenty of touristy things, like spending a couple days at Disneyland (Magic Kingdom and California Adventure), going to Universal Studios, spending a couple of days at the beach, checking out the Grand Canyon, etc. Following that, I'll be flying, along with the students, back to Japan. A couple of days later, I'll be flying to Canada for a week and a half. Then back to Japan, in time for the second term to begin. I'm sure I'll have a serious hate-on for airplanes after this.

So far, I am handling it, but I am fairly tired and stressed some days. My pay, housing and benefits are better (significantly) than they were in Korea, and I am making a lot of connections that could help me in the future, but somedays (today is one of them) I wonder if it's worth the stress. Having to be here and DO NOTHING on the 19th of July, when I am getting on a plane to America for four weeks the very next day, does not help the situation. Of course, some days are great and I forget the stresses. In October, I'll be having a meeting to decide what I'll be doing after the school year is finished in March. So far, I indend on continuing here for a few more years. Overall, things are very good here. It's mostly the politics of school (sadly, they do exist) and the lack of freedom that annoy me.

(You'll have to excuse the tone of the last paragraph, as I wasn't very happy about being woken up by the phone this morning. It isn't all bad here! I do have plenty of WELL EARNED holidays).

At least the principal and school chairmen like me. :)

This should prove to be both an interesting and busy summer. I'm hoping that the second term will be more easy going than the first.

Earthquake!

2006-06-22T22:38:00.000+09:00

...drill, that is. Yes, I do feel a small shaker every couple of weeks, but it's nothing to fear really. Even still, in this earthquake prone area, we have earthquake drills, along with fire drills, in the schools.

I knew we'd be having a drill a while ago, so I didn't have to waste time preping for a class that wouldn't happen. The alarm was set to go off in the first 10 minutes of my second ninensei (grade 2) class of the day, so we just did our morning greeting, said our morning prayer, starting singing "Jesus Love Me", and the earthquake alarm went off.

If you've never been in a Japanese earthquake drill before, this is what happens: the alarm goes off, and you immediately hide under your desk and cover your head. This is to protect yourself from any falling objects. Following the earthquake alarm, the fire alarm went off. The idea was that the earthquake caused a fire. In the classrooms, there are large head covers (which are basically replective large oven mitts). The students, as well as the teachers, are to put these on. This keeps the heat off I guess. The students also seemed to have some clothes to cover their mouths with, in order to keep out the smoke. Well, it's better than nothing I guess. Following this, we were to go to a meeting spot outside. Since it was raining, outside ended up being the gym.

I really do hope that if we ever have a fire, that it's not in the gym on a rainy day. That just might be the end of me.

What not to make in Japan

2006-06-18T23:53:00.000+09:00

Taking a play on words from Rory's site, this is what not to make in Japan. Seriously, some of this food could kill you if you are not in good health!

Exhibit A: Japanese extreme super dragon funny death MSG action food.

Seriously, do not even attempt to eat this if you are not in excellent health. In fact, even if you are in excellend health, this should not be eaten. Even eating half of this dish could change your status from "excellent health" to "grossly obese."

The contents of this meal include two sauce dishes. The top sauce consists of mayo and ketchup. These are to be mixed together, and have various food dipped into. This is not good for your health. In fact, when this was fed to a lab rat back in '95, the rat gained 1.3 kilograms, slipped into a coma for 4 months, and then died.

The other sauce is simply soy sauce and wasabi. This is actually healthy for you. For maximum health benefits, the wasabi should be eaten on it's own, with no other food. This has been known to cure such diseases as cancer, AIDS, and even pregnancy in some cases.

The top food dish is three different types of meat sticks; chicken, cow, and (possibly) aged goat liver (circa 1985). It is said that David Lee Roth ate this same dish after leaving the rock band "Van Halen", and lost his hair. In other words, this dish is a major cause of male pattern baldness. I should not have eaten this, and neither should any person who still has hair on their head.

The bottom dish contains an assortment of fried veggies, meats, and unidentifiable products. All of these things are laced with near-lethal dosages of MSG. As science has recently shown, MSG causes anmesia in arctic penguins. These penguins often forget that they are penguins from the arctic, and believe that they are businessmen in suits. So, if you are a businessman in a suit, and have eaten some food laced with MSG, there is a good chance that you are not who you think you are. You may actually be an arctic penguin. If you find yourself wearing a suit, while mindlessly sitting in an office, you need to seek help immediately.

Exhibit B: Triple layer french toast, bacon, cheese and maple syrup.

If exhibit A looked nasty, you haven't seen anything yet. This dish will make you fat, give you cancer, possibly give you AIDS, and then kill you if not eaten properly. It contains three layers of french toast (made with 8 egg yokes, 500 ml of 50/50 cream made from fat and "gently handled" Greek goats, and donut bread), mozzarella cheese, arctic penguin bacon (put down because of a severe case of anmesia), and maple syrup.

I was extremely lucky to survive such a meal. Julius Caesar ate this meal every March, and it killed him.

My Church

2006-06-18T21:44:00.000+09:00

This is about Urawa Lutheran Church, where I go every Sunday. The service is at 11:00. There's a childrens service at 9:00, and a Bible study at 10:00. The entire service is in Japanese. So, it's pretty difficult to follow for me. The structure is basically the same as any Lutheran church, so I'm not completely lost. Carl (my co-worker) and myself take turns leading the English Bible study. There's usually around 3-8 people in it. One of our Japanese friends and fellow church congregants translates when needed. Our Bibles are both in English and in Japanese.

One humourous part of church was during holy communion. Here, everyone received the bread and eats it straight away. When we receive the wind though (individual cups, filled at the alter), we should wait until everyone standing at the alter has been served. Then, the pastor instructs us to drink together. The first time I did this, I did not know I had to wait. So, as soon as I got the wine, I drank right away. After I realized that I should've waited, I was pretty embarrassed.

Here's the front of the church, with Pastor Kaye (my co-worker, who is not a practicing pastor right now) in front.

Here's is Pastor Suzuki and Debi's (one of the teachers we replaced) father erecting a new cross that he built himself. It has holes where the nails that held Jesus may have been. Lutheran churches generally do not have crucifixes. Instead, there is an empty cross. This is to emphesize that Jesus is alive; that He rose from the dead.

This is during a children's service, at Easter.

A few weeks ago, we had a couple of professors from Concordia College in Irvine California stay with us for about a week. Dr. Abate is the black guy (originally from Ethiopia), and Dr. Rooney is the white guy in the blue shirt and tie. Every year for the past 18 years(?), my school/church has invited a couple of professors from Concordia Irvine to come here and act as missionaries. During this time, they tour around the Tokyo area, give a couple speeches to students in our daily morning chapel services in the school, and also tour the school (sitting in on some classes, etc.). It's a nice opportunity for them to see Japan, and share their faith with a secular country.

Japan is officially around 1% Christian. Most profess to be Buddhist, Shinto or agnostic (unsure about religion). For those who are Buddhist or Shinto, this is in name only. They generally go to the special events a couple of times a year, and don't think about it for the rest of the year. This is similar to people who to go church only on Christmas and Easter, but don't really think about their faith the rest of the year.

This was from Easter. On this day, we had an Easter egg hunt for the kids. It was really fun watching them try to find the eggs!

Here's a couple of girls, who are also my students (grade 6).

Here are a few female high school students and college students, and myself. The girl (German/Japanese, but fluent in English also) on the right is doing a year of school here (grade 11 here, but is actually a bit older). The girl on the right (American) is doing an exchange with a university here in Tokyo for a semester. The two girls in the middle are grade 11 students.

Hi everyone! Peace!

This week, we had a group of five high school students and two chaperones visiting from Phoenix Arizona. They stayed for about a week. Each of them stayed with a different host family, and has opportunities to see much of Tokyo. They also were able to tour around the school, and observe some classes. This is the 8th year my school has done this. This picture was taken during a good-bye praise service in the school. After the worship, we had a nice buffet lunch. Then, everyone gave their good-bye speeches.

For 4 weeks this summer, my co-worker, another teacher and myself will be chaperoning 21 Japanese high school students in America. We'll be in Irvine, California for two weeks, and in Phoenix, Arizona for two week. We'll have chances to see things like Disneyland, some California beaches, Hollywood, the Grand Canyon, etc.

Here are a couple of grade 11 students. Their families hosted some of the Americans this week.

Here's a group of use posing in the church. The Americans from Phoenix are in the back (with Carl, my co-worker, on the right). In the front is one of the English teachers, the principal of the school, Pastor Suzuki, the chairman (and former principal) of the school, and myself.

My Hero

2006-06-11T14:48:00.001+09:00

Typical Don Cherry, as he does his thing during game three of the Stanley Cup Finals in Edmonton.

In other news, England won their opening World Cup game; blaming their non-loss on the hot weather. Silly Brits. I guess they just want an excuse all ready in case they get knocked out of the tourny early again. If they loose out on a cool day, they can blame in on Rooney's ankle. WOW! All bases are covered here!!! These guys actually thought this thing out...

Good-bye Shawn

2006-05-31T21:38:00.000+09:00

This is Korea Life Blog:

http://korealife.blogspot.com/

It's the first blog that I ever got into, and I could probably say that it was what inspired me to start writing my own. Reading through Shawn's site is also one of the things that gave me the confidence to take off and teach English in Korea, and later in Japan. I really enjoyed reading about Shawn's life; about his ups and downs, and about his adventures in Asia. Of all the online journals on the net, this one was my favourite to read (although Rory's "What Not to Do is Asia" was a close second at times). He eventually left Korea, and moved to China. His life seemed pretty good. Unfortunately, Shawn was torn up inside. He talked about how his father took his own life when he was yonger. He struggled through a dead-end job in America, and left for Korea to start a new life. He had a few tough bosses in Korea (haven't we all, for those of us who've done the Korea thing?). He had a few girlfriends in Korea, but none of them quite worked out. In China, he had a great job and some great students, but once again he had some girl problems. I guess it all came to a head, and he just couldn't deal with it any longer.

Shawn, I pray that you are paradise with your father. You've given me a bit of joy, a bit of confidence and a bit of entertainment over the past two years or so.

It's a rare occasion when someone that people only know from the internet can touch so many lives. From the bottom of my heart Shawn, I thank you.

http://chinavlog.typepad.com/

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=58113

Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

I can't judge where people's faith lies, but this is where I get my hope from:

1 Thessalonians 4:13-16

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise...

Death is not the end, it is mearly the beginning. I really believe that, just as was written in the words above. May God bless and give peace to the many that Shawn touched throughout his life.

Odaiba

2006-05-29T09:45:00.001+09:00

I would describe Odaiba as the 'futureland' of Tokyo. If you've ever been to Disney, then you know what I'm talking about. Actually, I think it might be more like some of the technology pavilions at Disney Epcot Center in Florida. Either way, Odaiba is really cool. I went here a few weeks ago, saw a bunch of stuff and took a bunch of photographs.

To get here, I took the Yurikamome train. This is an automatic train (un-manned) that runs on rubber wheels. It is the smoothest train ride that I've ever experienced, although the Maglev (magnet train; it levitates above the tracks via magnets) is probably even smoother. I took the Yurikamome to the beginning of the Rainbow Bridge, and then got off. Instead of riding the train right to where I wanted to go, I crossed the bridge on foot instead. It was a very nice, but windy, walk. I would like to take a ferry there as well sometime.

A scaled-down model of the Statue of Liberty, with the Rainbow Bridge (named because it's lit up in different colours at night) and the Tokyo skyline in the background.

Here I am at the base of the Rainbow Bridge, on the Tokyo side.

Just a cool view.

Another cool view.

I really like this picture. This is part of the highway, with the Yurikamome track in the middle.

Looking towards Odaiba, on the bridge.

I think this boat looks cool.

I am looking back towards Tokyo here.

Hmmm... this is just more of the same.

I'm not really sure what this greenery is. Maybe I'll check it out someday. That futuristic looking building in the centre is the Fuji TV building.

A shot of the beach, and some apartments. See the ferris wheel? I think Japanese and Korean people must be obsessed with them. I don't know if I've seen a decent sized city in either country that did not have a large ferris wheel or three. They do look pretty sweet at nighttime, when they're lit up...

I was imagining that I was on a tropical island.

Some people mucking around on the beach. It was pretty hot this day, but I didn't see any girls with no shirts on. I'll keep looking, and report in when I see some.

The whole area behind the sand is boardwalk. There are quite a few malls, stores and cool restaurants there. While there, I took the advice of a certain ZZ Top song and bought myself some cheap sunglasses.

Again, have I wanted into some sort of tropical paradise?

That crazy building in the background is called 'Tokyo Big Sight.' It's a convention centre.

Here's one of the many gnarly restaurants. This one was called 'The Longboard Cafe.' They gave it a real classic California feel. Hey! I'll be in California in only about a month and a half. Weeeeeeee!!!

I had a chili cheese dog and chips. I may or may not have drank a few Coronas.

This place is called 'Decks'. It's probably called that because it's built on a large deck. The botton level is all boardwalk. It's a pretty cool shopping mall.

I also went to the Toyoda showroom, where all the flashy new cars were on display.

Wouldn't those be fun to race...

This is cute. They had an elevated track around the place where you could take this for a test drive.

They even had some crazy looking concept cars. This one looks like a neo-classic albino batmobile.

Whoa! (said in a Keanu Reeves voice)

That's all folks!

Astroboy in Japan: Curry Edition

2006-05-29T09:40:00.000+09:00

What more needs to be said? They have a picture of freakin' Astroboy on a box of curry mix! That's Hamtaro the Hampster on the right. I have no idea what is on the left.

The very first post.

2006-05-22T20:40:00.000+09:00

I edited the very first post of my blog. See it HERE. You can definitely tell that I wasn't using a spell checker in my early posts. Not that I could, in a Korean internet cafe.

Shinjuku, Harajuku and Shibuya

2006-05-21T16:00:00.000+09:00

Shibuya, Shinjuku and Harajuku are three of the most famous areas in Tokyo.

SHINJUKU

Shinjuku is a large business, entertainment and shopping district in Tokyo. It is also home to Tokyo's busiest train station; Shinjuku Station (it handles more than 2 million people a day). Many of Tokyo's skyscrapers are located in this district, as well as some of it's red light areas.

Here's a pretty good view of the Shinjuku skyline.

More buildings.

Like most areas in Tokyo, there are a ton of small shops on the back streets. Some of these back streets sell wares that I was not interested in, as I noticed when some pretty ugly old guys with more teeth missing than they had were trying to ask me if I wanted to meet some girls. Right... Isn't that what nightclubs are for?

A pretty good view of some of the signage in the area.

Actually, I didn't find Shinjuku to be all that amazing. There were a ton of people, and many different kinds of shops and that sort of thing, but there really wasn't anything here that I wouldn't come across elsewhere. It's main just a large business hub.

HARAJUKU

Harajuku is more interesting. It's a very post and hip area. If you ever want to check out the styles and fashion in Tokyo, this might be the best place to come. The 'Harajuku girls' are pretty famous, as they dress up in very interesting clothing. This is a very popular area for teenagers and young adults to hang out in.

Harajuku Station. It's definitely one of the more stylish train stations!

Another view of the station. I mainly just wanted to get this cute girl in the shot.

An example of 'Harajuku Girls' (picture is from Wikipedia.org) . Often, young people (boys and girls) will dress-up as their favourite musicians, actors, cartoon characters, pop icons, etc., just hang out in Harajuku (and other areas of course. People also do this in Saitama) and have fun playing dress-up. This is often referred to as 'cosplay', which is short for 'costume play.' It's definitely interesting going to somewhere like Harajuku and just checking out how people are dressed up, as they parade themselves around and happily pose for pictures taken by their friends and also by strangers. Some people really seem to get into it. This could be considered a form of living visual art.

Interestingly, there's a genre of music that is closely related to cosplay. It's called 'visual kei.' Visual kei isn't necessarily a musical style. Rather, it refers to the visual style of the band. It is often hallmarked by dyed hair, make-up and attention-grabbing clothing. The J-Rock ('J', standing for Japanese) group, X Japan, is generally credited with having founded this movement. They were quite popular in the 80s and 90s, until their break-up and then death of one of the main members. It could be assumed that the style of X Japan was influenced by some American 'glam rock' bands, such as Motley Crue and Poison; who were known for their big hair and make-up in the 80s. The band KISS should be credited for this as well, as they were extremely well known for their visual style and full-face make-up, as far back as the early 1970s.

The late 'Hide' (Heed-eh), of X Japan (taken from Ugly Pink Machine). He was well known for his make-up and pink hair, which gave him a feminine-like appearance (very similar to early American glam rock bands like Motley Crue and Poison).

Across from Harajuku Station is Snoopy Town. What a cool place! Snoopy Town is actually a chain of Peanuts (Charlie Brown, Snoopy, etc.) stores in Japan, where you can buy all sorts of Peanuts things; lunch boxes, pencils, stuffed characters, etc. It's very similar to a Disney or Hello Kitty store.

This is the main street through Harajuku. There were a lot of cool cars to be seen. Here's a Mini Cooper, a cute little car.

Hey, an old station wagon! Seeing a vehicle this old in Japan is very rare. Most cars are only a couple years old, due to a strict upkeep law in Japan.

Another view of the main road through the district, looking towards Shibuya.

I stood on pedestrian overpasses and took some pictures.

Another shot.

Here's the United Nations University campus. I never would've known there was a UN University until I saw this.

Is there Pepsi Nex in Canada? It's being heavily pushed here. To be honest, it's just not that good.

They were showing a production of 'Annie' at Aoyama Theatre. Notice the line-up...

... it is quite long! Also notice the gender of the people. I think this would be a great place to meet some girls! :D

SHIBUYA

Like Harajuku, Shibuya is a popular spot of fashion and shopping. There is also a lot of entertainment here. There are many different nightclubs and bars that keep the young crowds here at night. Shibuya Station is one of the busiest in Japan. The pedestrian crossing in front of the station is reportedly the busiest street crossing in the world. A Starbucks is located in one of the buildings overlooking this crossing, and it has been reported at the busiest Starbucks in the world. I thought of going in, but it's so busy that your order is taken at the entrance, and then you get to wait around for who-knows-how-long until a seat is free. I didn't feel like waiting.

Wow, giant video screens. WEEEEEE!!! Look at all the people...

...and more people...

The stop light go red for the cars, and the green walking light comes on in all directions. People can cross the intersection straight across, or go diagonally.

Lots of light and video screens.

Isn't neon great?

I like it.

The Koreans are invading! Forget Godzilla, Samsung is taking over! Run!!!

Ahhh... Time for an ice cold Labatt Blue and a plate of poutine down at 'The Maple Leaf.'

Go Oilers Go!

2006-05-18T11:42:00.000+09:00

Congrats to the Edmonton Oilers, on making it to the NHL western semi-finals!

I hope the destroy Anaheim. I hate those guys.

당신은 사랑 받기위해 태어난 사람 (Miracle)

2006-05-15T22:45:00.000+09:00

당신은 사랑 받기위해 태어난 사람
Dangsenun Sarang Bagiwihae Taeonan Saram (Korean) (Maybe it's called "Miracle" in English)
by 이민숩 (Min-Sup Lee) (2004)

きみは愛されるため生まれた (Japanese title) (If I find time, I will write out the lyrics in Japanese also. I would also like to translate this to English, or find a translation. As far as I know, this song has never been translated to English.)

lyrics

당신은 사랑 받기위해 태어난 사람
Dangsingun sarang badgi wehae daeonun saram
당신의 삶 속에서 그 사랑 받고 있지요
Dangseenik salm sokeso gu sarang badgo eetchiyo

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람
Dangseenun sarang badgi wehae taeonan saram
당신의 삶 속에서 그 사랑 받고 있지요
dangseneek salmsokeso go sarang badgo eetchiyo

태초부터 시작된 하나님의 사랑은
Taetchobuto seechakdwon hananomeek sarangun
우리의 만남를 통해 열매를 맺고
Uroeek mannamrul tonghae yeolmaerul maechgo

당신이 이 세상에 존재함으로 인해
dangseenee yi saesang-eh chonchaehamuro eenhae
우리에겐 얼마나 큰 기쁨이 되는지
uro-eh-kehn orlmanakun geebumee duwochee

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람
Dangseenun sarang badgi wehae taeonan saram
지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요
chigumdo gu sarang badgo eetchiyo

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람
dangranun sarang badgi wehae taeeonan saram
지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요
chigumdo gu sarang badgo etchiyo

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람
dangseenun sarang badgi wegae taeonan saram
당신의 삶 속에서 그 사랑 받고 있지요
dangseeneek salm sok-eh-so gu sarang badgo eetchiyo

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람
dangsenun sarang badgi wehae taeonan saram
당신의 삶 속에서 그 사랑 받고 있지요
dangseeneek salm sokeso gu sarang badgo etchiyo

태초부터 시작된 하나님의 사랑은
taetchobuto seechokdwohn hananomwe sarangun
우리의 만남을 통해 열매를 맺고
uroeek mannamul tonghae yolmaerul maechgo

당신이 이 세상에 존재함으로 인해
dangseenee yi saesang-eh chonchaehamunro eenhae
우리에겐 얼마나 큰 기쁨이 되는지
uro-eh-ken olmana kun geebumee dwohnunchi

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람
dangseenun sarang badgi wehae taeonan saram
지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요
chigoomdo go sarang badgo eetchiyo

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람
dangseenun sarang badgi wehae taeonan saram
지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요
chigumdo go sarang badgo eetchiyo

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람
dangseenun sarang badgi wehae taeeonan saram
지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요
chigumdo go sarang badhi eetchiyo

당신은 사랑 받기위해 태어난 사람
dangseenun ssarang badgi wehae taeonan saram
지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요
chigumdo go sarang badgo eetchiyo

지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요
chigumdo go sarang badto eetchiyo

To the best mother's in the world

2006-05-15T21:16:00.000+09:00

Mothers and grandmothers, possibly the greatest things in life. God bless, and thanks for everything!

The Tofu Rap

2006-05-15T20:52:00.000+09:00

Tofu is good for me;
Tofu is good for you.
I'll have some tofu;
And you can have some too.
Woo-hoo!

Asakusa

2006-05-08T22:28:00.000+09:00

Asaku-sa is a popular tourist destination in Tokyo, and is not far from Ueno Park. It is not far from where I live either. The tourist area consists of a shopping street, which has many souvenirs, and a large Buddhist temple.

Here's me, standing in front of the main gate. I look good with no crutches!

Here's looking down the tourist-packed street, which is filled with tons of omiyagi (souvenir) shops.

This is at the temple.

A pretty cool looking pagota.

Here's a nice panorama of the gate.

And here's one of the temple.

I also went to Ueno Park again, after Asaku-sa.

In front of the national museum, in Ueno Park, there was a pretty good puppeteer. He seemed to be from France, although he had no problem talking to the crowd in Japanese. Definitely a good show. He was amazing to watch, as he danced the puppets, played his violin, and worked some bells. The crowd got pretty into the act.

When I get around to it, I've also got plenty of pictures from Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Obaiba, my church and my school, amoungst other things. I'm not sure if I'll make it to Kamakura or Nikko before I run off to California, Arizona and Canada for 6 weeks this summer. We'll see!

Bonsai Village and Rakuten Kitazawa

2006-05-01T20:26:00.000+09:00

If I hadn't told you before, I'll tell you now...

I live in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the world. Honestly, when I've gone into Tokyo and told people where I live, they either don't believe me, tell me I'm extremely lucky, or think it would suck to live so far away from the nightclubs.

I live in Bonsai-cho (Bonsai Village). The entire village is basically an open-air Bonsai tree museum. It is, by far, the largest Bonsai exhibition in the world. Former US President Clinton has even been here, where he had an 80-year old ezo spruce Bonsai presented to him by the Prime Minister of Japan at the time (1998). Other world leaders have visited here as well.

From Bonsai-in-Asia.com:

The Bonsai Village was established in Omiya over seventy years ago in 1925, two years after the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923. Bonsai growers who had lived in the Hongo Area in Tokyo, learned a lesson from the earthquake and decided to move to Omiya where there was good soil for nurturing bonsai with clean water and fresh air. At its peak, Bonsai Village encompassed more than 30 distinguished Houses. Today, more than 10 Houses can be found in the area, consistently producing some of the world's most envied and beautiful bonsai. In addition, the Great Bonsai Festival draws great crowds and is held each year from May 3rd to May 5th. Bonsai is very popular abroad, and Bonsai Village has hosted young trainees from Europe and the United States while entertaining 10,000 visitors from abroad annually. Though Japanese people tend to regard bonsai as being rather exclusive, bonsai trees are very easy to admire. Visitors are welcome to stroll around Bonsai Village at their leisure. For those who have tired from a day's worth of sightseeing, the Japanese-style "House of Four Seasons" provides a relaxing complementary rest area.

I will note that the "House of Four Seasons" is one block down the street from me. As I live in such a nice area and have a spare bedroom, prehaps I could use my room as a hotel. $250/night would be good, I think. At any rate, it should be entertaining to watch all of the tourists walking around, as I chase them off my property with a broom-stick! Damned tourists, always walking around my neighborhood. When will all of these stinky foreigners go back to where they came from?

...

Bonsai trees are, of course, miniature trees. They are grown in pots, and diligantly pruned; hense their small size. Because they are so well cared for, Bonsai have been known to live for a long time.

Apparently, the oldest Bonsai is at least 3600 years old. Here's a quote about it that I found:

"Archaeologists recently discovered the world's oldest living bonsai dating back at least 3600 years. The potted pine was found in central China, standing vigil over the tombs of the fourth emperor of the Shang dynasty and his queen. The 41 cm high tree stood in a solid gold pot which was itself set on a solid gold pedestal some 75 cm high. A fine dripper arrangement had been built into the stone roof of the tomb complex, allowing a single drop of water to fall onto the tree every single minute. The tree, in absolute darkness for more than three and a half milleniums, was chalk white, having lost all its chlorophyll. The continuos action of falling water has washed away all the soil in the pot leaving only the drainage layer of diamonds. The dense roots were as white as the pine needles. This tree, which is almost as old as the great Egyptian pyramids. might well be classified as one of the wonders of the natural world." -Easterbrook, David; Bonsai Down Under, Autumn 1985.

Of course, I am using a quote from a 21 year-old book that I've never read. As well, withoug sunlight, I doubt the tree could've gotten all of the essential nutriants that it needed to survive. It is a neat story though.

It seems that the oldest actual bonsai is still amazingly old though. Herb Gustafson, from Eugene, Oregon, has a vine maple bonsai that has been dated, via root layering, to 1394 years old. Wow!

Well, let's look at a few interesting pictures of Bonsai-cho in Omiya, shall we?

Most of the bonsai houses are something like this. There's a house, where the owner and his family live, and a yard, where a bunch of trees are displayed. Some of them do look really cool.

Here's the back alley that leads up to my place. It sure does look better than any back alley that I saw in Canada... or Korea for that matter! I love all the different colours. A couple of weeks ago, this walkway has covered in pink and white sakura leaves. Now that the green is out, it is still a beautiful walk. Poor me, having to live in the middle of this dump, eh?

This thing... I'm not really sure how to describe it. I guess I'll just call it the 'ostrich tree', as it looks like it's trying to bury it's crown in the ground.

Here is a cartoon museum, which features the works of Takuten Kitazawa. Kitazawa-san is considered to be one of the pioneers of manga, or cartoons, in Japan. He founded the, then famous, satirical magazine called Tokyo Puck, in 1905. The magazine was printed in Japanese, as well as both English and Chinese. Much of his later work appeared in many other languages as well. I visited this place last weekend. Although small, it did have some impressive work to be seen.

I literally live half a block from this place.

Tokyo Puck

Just for kicks, here's some old work from the great Osamu Tezuka. Hey, it is part of my site's name!

To be honest though, my favourite cartoonist is neither Kitazawa-san or Tezuka-san. Above is a sample of the work of Hayao Miyazaki. Maybe some of you will recongize the artwork. It's quite famous.

Evening Sakura

2006-05-01T20:21:00.000+09:00

I took this photograph a few weeks ago, but I thought I'd share it. I liked how the light lit up the Sakura tree in the dark. The pink flowers turned an interesting colour.

Yet another Skyline (Nissan)

2006-05-01T12:07:00.000+09:00

Rory, this one's for you. It's a Skyline.

Yokohama Alpha

2006-04-30T20:28:00.000+09:00

These pictures were all taken about a month ago, before the last set of Yokohama pictures. One day before, to be exact. On this trip, I went with my co-worker, Carl, and his family, Grace (wife) and Nathanael (son).

Here's Carl's family, posing for a photo in the teacher's room at school.

A cool looking shrine in Yokohama Chinatown.

The same shrine, just past the gate.

One of the many, many street stalls in Chinatown.

I kind of like this picture, of Nathanael and myself. We're all serious looking.

Now we're happy!

Posing again!

I don't really know why I needed to put up another picture of the Yokohama skyline.

I thought this was neat. The highway is above the canal. It's like a magician cast a spell, and the highway magically rose up from the concrete ground.

Kawasaki Eliminator 250V

2006-04-18T21:01:00.000+09:00

Now this is one sweet bike. All I need is a Japanese 250 or under bike licence, and I'm good to go (NOT the easiest thing to get in the world). I would love something like this!

Don't worry, I'll get back to my regularly scheduled posting soon enough. I've just been super-busy with school lately!

Yokohama

2006-04-04T20:08:00.000+09:00

I went to Yokohama two days in a row. On the first trip, I went with my co-worker, Carl, and his wife and young son. During that trip, I forgot my backpack on the train. After getting a hold of the lost and found office, I was told I could pick it up. So, I went back to Yokohama. Here's some pictures!

This is from one of the train stations. It wasn't going to post this picture, but I thought it was funny that these three boys were watching me.

This picture gives a good sense of the size of the place.

A pretty cool looking bus.

Here's the landmark tower. It has the highest observatory in Japan, on the 69th flood. Apparently the elevator is the fastest in the world, going 750 metres/minute.

A few of the water front promenade, going from the skyline area to Yamashita Park. Yokohama has one of the coolest looking skylines that I've ever seen. The suspention bridges in the background look awesome.

Another view, in a different direction. Drink Coca-Cola Classic!

A cool looking boat.

Another view of the skyline.

I really couldn't stop taking pictures.

I does look good though.

A neat fountain, in front of the enterance to Chinatown.

Towards Chinatown.

The Chinatown gate.

Pretty lights.

A store, with some Chinese stuff.

There were a ton of street vendors selling thinks like Chinese dumplings and roasted chestnuts.

These streets make me imagine that I'm in Kowloon, in Hong Kong.

There's a large neon dragon on that building!

My Apartment

2006-04-03T21:00:00.000+09:00

Here's some pictures that I took to give everyone an idea of where I'm sleeping now. It's really a very nice place.

Here's a picture of the building. I'll put up more pictures of it at a later date. That's Tom and Debi, whom I am replacing (along with my new co-worker, Carl). I stole their house. :)

Here's looking to the entryway. That's a cane that I've been using; given to me by a shop owner from down the road. The door on the right is my second bedreem/office/computer room.

Here's my computer room. The entire left side here is boxes from Tom and Debi. I'll have them for a few weeks, until they leave Japan. They're going to tour around a bit before going back to America.

Here's looking into the place from the entry. My W.C. is on the right, that's my bedroom behind the door. The rest is easy to figure out.

Here's my chicken, as my Korean students used to call it. They had a lot of fun saying chicken instead of kitchen, to see if I would catch it.

Another shot of it.

I have a cool cupboard. Tom and Debi graciously filled half of it for me. On top of it, is a pipe. I thought it was cool, so I bought a pipe. Now I can be like my Grandpa in Quebec! Don't worry mum, it's just for show.

Here's my entertainment centre. TV, satillite (or digital cable, I don't really know), VCR, media center X-Box (DVD, MP3, etc.), and surround sound stereo. Weeeeee!

So far, I can relax on my conforable pillows, and sit in saiza (on my knees; traditional Buddhist sitting position). Well actually, I can't. My leg isn't quite flexable enough yet! It almost is at least.

I bought these cool light from a used furniture store nearby. Aren't they awesome?

This is looking back into my chicken.

I have some closets! That's something I was missing in Korea. I even bought a few cool ties. I hope my students like pink!

Here's my bedroom. There's a sliding door that seperates my living room from my bedroom. When they're open, it's almost like one large room.

Where's the bed?

There it is! It's in the closet! I sleep on a couple of thin futon mats. It's very comfortable.

My W.C. has three rooms. This is the laundry room, with wash basin, washing machine and drying machine.

The bathroom.

This thing is really cool. In the tub, there's a water jet. This panel controls the water temperature. I just push a button, and it fills the tup to the level of water that I want at the temperature that I want, and it can retain the temperature for as long as I want as well. In a tub like this, I can take a shower outside of the tub (the floor is also a shower floor, much like my W.C. floor in Korea). When I'm clean, I soak in the tub. I can leave the water in, and put the cover on. Then, maybe the next day, I just push a button so that the water heats up, and I have another bath. I save water this way. It's very efficiant.

The toilet room.

The toilet is even really cool! There's a little sink on top here. After I flush, the water that fills the basin comes first out of the tap, so I can rinse my hands in it. Again, my W.C. is very water efficiant!

My balcony. I have flowers! Don't worry, I still bat for the home team. The only AC/DC I know is the hard rock band from Australia. I only swing on swings in the playground.

I put a chair out here so I can look into the garden in the back and smoke on my pipe, as opposed to someone elses.

Okay, I'll stop now.

Ueno Park

2006-04-02T23:08:00.000+09:00

Welcome to Ueno Park, one of the largest parks in Tokyo, and home to Panda bears (which I didn't get a picture of), a statue of Saigo Takamori (who many people might recongize from the movie; "The Last Samurai". I didn't get a picture of that either), a shrine dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, and a shitload of sakura (cherry blossums).

As you can see, the park was quite busy. Everyone wanted to get a chance to take pictures of me in front of the sakura.

Quite amazing, isn't it?

Beautiful white blossums. The sakura range in colour from white, to various shades of pink.

Can you see the Domino's Pizza guy here? There was a whole army of them, taking pizza orders for the people picnicing on the blue tarps.

Here's a sweet-looking parade of ttori gates, leading to what I figure is Toshogu Shine, which is dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu.

I think these walkways are one of the coolest things in the world.

I think I'm starting to get a bit better at taking pictures. I really like having some plantlife in the foreground, while having the main scene partially hidden behind it.

More of the shrine.

I think I could've paid to go in, but I didn't bother. Next time I come here I'll go in and check it out.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I've ever taken.

A more complete scene of the above picture.

That is a temple for the heathen Goddess of Benton in the centre. I was going to burn it down, but someone may have seen me. I was not alone.

Here's some nice, deep-coloured blossums.

What the hell is that?

This is definetely a cool picture of the sun behind 'what the hell is that.'

Many people took advantage of the boats on this fine day.

"Quack!", "Quack!".

Here I am, playing with the camera again.

I sure am getting some quality pictures though.

Here is the Tokyo National Museum. I need to come back and check this place out sometime.

"Pink, it's my favourite colour..."

This pagota looks pretty nifty. I wonder what the Japanese word for pagota is...

Monkeys! Ueno Park has a rather large zoo, complete with animals of all types. Currently featured are giant panda bears. I was more interested in monkeys.

This turtle was a pretty mellowed out dude. I turned my music up for him, so he could chill out to some Marley.

Trains of Tokyo

2006-04-02T23:05:00.000+09:00

There sure are a lot of trains here:

Wow! Just look at all of those tracks!

Don't fall!

Saitama

2006-03-30T20:34:00.000+09:00

I live in Saitama City, Saitama Prefecture. It borders Northwest Tokyo, and might as well be the same city (similar to other places like Yokohama, Chiba, etc). They really are just one super large city. The train system fully and conveniently covers all of these areas. Around a million people live specifically in Saitama City, and are part of the 33 million included in the population of metro Tokyo. That's more people then there are living in Canada.

Saitama City is an amalgamation of three cities, called Omiya, Yono and Urawa. I live in what was is still referred to as Omiya, while I work in Urawa. It takes me a 30-40 minute to get to school from my home. It takes me about 20-30 minutes to get to Akihabara Station on the train, about 40 minutes to get to Tokyo Station, and about an hour to get to Yokohama Station from Omiya Station. So, I'm not too far from some major centres.

Saitama is home to not one, but two professional football (soccer) teams! They are called the Urawa Reds and the Omiya Ardija. The Reds are the much more popular than the Ardija. Luckly for me, the head trainer for the Reds goes to my church. Well, his wife does anyway, as he is usually busy with football. That means cheap (meaning free) tickets! Yeah!

Here's a nice view of the Saitama skyline that I took a picture of one evening.

A closer view of the same thing.

Here's another view of the skyline, in the daytime.

Here's a neat view. This road takes me nearly all the way from my school to my apartment.

This is, as you can read, the Saitama Super Arena. A lot of concerts are held here. I don't think that football is played here though. There are other stadiums for that.

It is also home to the John Lennon Museum. Mr. Nerino, if you ever come and visit, you'll have to check this place out!

This is from downtown Omiya.

It's a Shell staion!

Downtown Omiya. These banners are all for the Ardija football club.

Just some cool houses.

Who says Japanese people are all work and no sleep?

Here's the giant banner on one of the infamous 'love hotels'. It's all 'for you!'.

Akihabara

2006-03-24T20:51:00.000+09:00

Akihabara is the largest electronics district in the world. Nothing else comes close. Everything from video games, to music, video, computers, anime, model trains, etc. can be found here in mass abundance. If you like that kind of stuff, then you need to come here. Even if you don't, it's still pretty interesting.

Ohhhh, neon lights...

SEGA!

Ohhhh, more neon lights.

Inside one of the many, many video game stores. They're heavily promoting Final Fantasy XII right now.

The new X-Box 360 is playable, but it's really not that popular when compared to the Playstation 2. There were some Nintendo games too, but the Playstation was easily the most popular.

This is a view from the train station.

So is this.

Tokyo

2006-03-22T21:05:00.000+09:00

On Tuesday, I decided to jump on the subway and check out some of Tokyo. It turned out to be a very interesting day.

Tokyo Station

Tokyo station itself it probably a bit over an hour away from me on the trains. To say it is impressive would be an understatement. This place is absolutely huge. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that the main building has been restored since the war.

As the station is right in the city, there are many skyscrapers rising above it. It is in close walking distance to the Imperial palace, and a lot of other sites. The Tokyo train system (including the subway, ground, elevated, shinkansen (bullet train), etc.) is extremely efficiant. You could get virtually everywhere in Japan with them, although they are fairly expensive when compaired with other countries (I'm thinking specifically about Korea).

Tokyo station does not mearly consist of the elegant older building. It's quite modern as well. There are many restaurants, shops, stalls, etc. within it. You could probably spend a few hours just checking out the place, if you so desired.

Downtown Tokyo

To me, it feels like all of Tokyo is downtown Tokyo. There are buildings as far as the eye can see, and then many eyes past that. This group of photos is all from the area around Tokyo Station.

This is in front of the grounds of the Imperial Palace. You can see Tokyo Tower in the distance.

This is just an example of a street.

No explaination necessary.

This is looking down the street in front of the Imperial Palace. Again, you can see Tokyo Tower in the distance.

I thought this was an impressive view of some skyline from the Palace grounds.

This is another view from the same spot.

Here's a better view leading up to the tower.

This is known as 'Fountain Park.'

The Imperial Palace

The Palace area is quite impressive, although you cannot enter the area right around it. The public is allowed access to the east gardens though. I suppose that Emperor Akihito and his wife reside here.

The bridge here is awesome looking.

This is a classic close view of a bridge in front of the palace.

This is a second bridge, which is beyond the one if the previous picture.

This moat surrounds the Palace grounds, complete with a steep wall on the palace side.

I wonder how his guys fighting skills are? He was kind and said 'konichiwa' to me though.

As you might suspect, I like taking pictures of the tower.

Just a nice view of the palace wall.

On the corners of the walls around most Japanese castles, are guard towers such as this one.

This was taken from within the east gardens. Hey there birdie!

I just thought this was a nice picture. There is a public restroom near here. I watched a young boy go in, and exclaim "hwa-jung-shil!," the Korean word for restroom. I said 'annyong' to him, and 'annyong hasaeyo' (Korean words for hello) to his father. The kid stared at me in utter amazement, and his father walked a few steps before realized what I said to him. He then turned around and just stared at me in disbelief. "How could this guy know that we are Korean, and then say hello to us in our own language?", I'm guessing they were thinking. I told them that I lived in Ulsan, in my broken Korean. The father seemed happy, and the kid was extactic; jumping around and waving at me. It really made my day; watching the boy act so excited.

Here's an awesome picture of the blossums on a plum tree. Soon, the cheery trees (sakura) will blossum.

Nice flowers, eh?

What about these ones?

I have no idea what these buildings are for, but I took a photo anyway.

Another picture of the moat.

There are fish in most every pond in this country. I like to put my hand out over the water, and watch the fish poke their heads up when they see it. Many tourists like to feed the fish, so like Pavlov's dog, when they see a human hand over them, their body is tuned to expect food. It's entertaining to watch a couple dozen fish all poke their heads above the water when I wave my hand. I feel like a magician!

This sure is pretty.

Tokyo is warm enough to have cool trees like this one.

I'm wondering if these are embassy houses, government houses, or what.

Here's another one of the houses on the Palace grounds.

A nice large plum tree.

This was an interesting building. It was so interesting that...

...these people were painting pictures of it!

Many years ago, there stood a castle here. Then it burned down.

A park.

A gate.

Here's a nice picture of the moat.

What's this lighthouse doing here; right outside of the gates?

The Budokan

This is probably one of the most famous arenas in the world. It's famous for hosting some music concerts (Bob Dylan, Cheap Trick and Dream Theater have all produced live albums from here, and many other famous bands have played here (think The Beatles and The Rolling Stones). Also, many sporting events are commonly held here, like martial arts tournaments, mixed martial arts fighting (UFC, Pride, K1, etc.), and pro wrestling. There was a judo tournament going on here when I took this picture.

Yasakuni Shrine

Yasakuni Shine has been in the news a lot lately. It is a war shine, used to honour (or worship) dead Japanese 'war heros' from the past. Included are those who have been recongized by the world as war criminals. Routinely, the Japanese Prime Minister (currently Junichiro Koizumi) has made a point of visiting this place, much to the dismay and disgust of many countries. Some countries, such as Korea and China, have been very public about their agony over the PM visiting this place. It is seen as venerating these war criminals when the Prime Minister comes here, and this has affected international relations between Japan and it's former enemies. There is also a war museum on site, which sugar coats some of Japan's questionable history (it's explaination of the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 is a good example of this).

Here's a large ttori, leading to the shrine.

These trees make the place appear very solemn at this time of year, due to their lack of leaves.

There are a number of good stalls, picnic tables and guys playing some music in the grounds.

This guy was making some of my favorite food; okonomiyaki. Mmmmmmmmmmm... I make sure to eat some.

This lady was making octopus dumplings.

There's the main gate, leading to the shrine.

One of the large buildings on the grounds.

Yasakuni Shrine.

Nice picture.

Here's another view of the shrine.

A nice close up of it.

This is inside the war museum. I took this before noticing the 'no cameras' sign.

A cool looking old locomotive.

Some howitzers.

Leaving the shrine.

Tokyo Tower

Next, I headed off to check out Tokyo Tower. The Eiffel Tower is Paris must've been modelled after it... ;)

It sure does look impressive though. It's 33 feet higher than the tower in Paris. The Japanese seem to like to do things a little bigger than everyone else. Currently, there's another tower in the works; due to be completed in 2010. It is planned to reach 600 metres. That would make it the tallest free-standing structure in the world; putting the CN Tower in Toronto at number two.

Of course, I had to go up the tower. Here's some of the breathtaking scenes that I saw. You can see Tokyo Bay here.

These building really look cool, I think.

Kabuki Theater

The Kabuki Theater is located in the popular Ginza shopping district. Since this is Tokyo, that means there are many, many neon lights.

Here's the famous theater. Kabuki is a kind of Japanese play. There is lots of white make-up involved in this, as well as traditional Japanese music and guys yelling Japanese things. It was very surreal and weird to me, but also very interesting and entertaining. I'd like to go again sometime. I rented a radio and earphone, which gave me an English explaination of what was going on.

A closer view of it.

Here's a picture that I took. Since you're not supposed to take pictures, I at least turned my flash off. As a result, I could not get a decent photo.

So I just took this one from Wikipedia.org.

I am a Christian missionary

2006-03-21T21:37:00.000+09:00

Yes, you read that right. I am a Christian missionary in Japan.

Yes, that means that I have to teach the Christian 'Gospel'. Gospel means 'good news.' That good news is that Jesus, the guy who lived about 2000 years ago, died a really nasty death, but then came back to life. To believe that is to be a Christian. Christians believe that after we die, our bodies will also rise back to life from death. In the Bible, the main part if Christianity is stated in John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

and in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

That is Christianity, in a nutshell.

I am a teacher in a Christian (Lutheran) private school, which has students from grades one to twelve. It is one of the only schools in Japan that has every grade from elementary school to high school in it. If I were to stay here for twelve years, I would be able to watch a young child group up into an adult; ready to face the world, head-on. What a blessing that would be. I will be teaching grades 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11 this year. I am the head teacher (meaning that I must do lesson planes and lead the class) in every grade, except for grade 8. In that grade, the Japanese teacher is the head teacher, and I am the assistant. This is differant that most teaching jobs in Japan, where the foreign teacher is the assistant. This is more work for me, but I am also paid more in return.

In addition to teaching in school, I also will be leading a small group Bible study on Sundays, at church. During July, I will be chaperoning a group of Japanese students on a 4-week trip to America; LA and Phoenix. We will we going to places like Disneyland, Hollywood, a beach, the Grand Canyon, and other things. We will be visiting Concordia College in Irvine, and a Lutheran church in Phoenix. Also, I will help in coordinating a faculty trip for some people from my school to the USA, a trip for a group of students from America to Japan, and a trip for Concordia (Irvine) College faculty to Japan. I'll be pretty busy.

In my next few posts, I'll have pictures from my school, where I'm living, and pictures from around Tokyo. So far I've been to Akihabara (the electronics district), the Imperial Palace Gardens, the Budokan (famous for many rock concerts and Judo competitions), Yasakuni Shrine (a very contraversial place), Tokyo Tower, and I've seen a play at the Kabuki Theater.

The last picture that I took in Korea; looking onto the north side of the Taewa river.

...And here's a nice shot of downtown Tokyo; infront of the Imperial Palace, looking towards Tokyo Tower.

Astroboy in Japan

2006-03-18T14:41:00.000+09:00

The Japan saga has begun.

Goodbye Ulsan!

2006-03-11T16:51:00.000+09:00

I went for a walk yesterday, for the first time in over two months. It was between 15 and 20 degrees outside, and sunny. It really was a beautiful day. I made around the University of Ulsan campus, and took a few pictures as well.

I was pleasantly surprised to bump into Professor Wolfgang, who was in between classes, on my walk. I sat down with him and we had a nice chat for an hour or so.

Here's a nice house near where I live.

Goodbye kids!

2006-03-11T15:16:00.000+09:00

My last day at work was on Thursday. Luckly, I was smart enough to take some pictures of some of my kids. I won't comment too much, I'll just post the pictures.

Here is Elite English Academy, where I've been teaching English in Ulsan, South Korea.

This is from the front desk, inside the academy. Hi Candice-Teacher!

I'll miss every single one (well, almost) of these kids. I'll just let the pictures do the talking from here.

Of Crutches and Men

2006-03-09T11:54:00.000+09:00

I visit the 'ol doc today, and I've been cleared to walk (after a few days of using crutches still, in order to build my muscles a bit).

The doc asked me when I was leaving Korea. I told him on Sunday. He said that I didn't need to bring my crutches.

"Oh, but I think I will bring them", said I.

"Why would you do that?", said he.

"So I can get ushed to the front of the airport lines", said I.

"Good thinking", said he.

Myspace

2006-03-02T02:46:00.000+09:00

I made up a quick site on myspace.com, just because I felt like it. Here's the link: http://www.myspace.com/blakecheslock.

There are a few pictures on it that aren't on this site.

I've become a Korean spelling teacher

2006-03-01T02:12:00.000+09:00

I've turned into an expert on Korean spelling. I finally saw evidence of that today, in one of my grade 4 classes.

Between classes, I'm in a habit of hanging around in my class at least half the time, as opposed to hanging out in the teachers lounge. Most of the students seem to like me being around, and we talk and play little games on the chalkboard. During one of these breaks, I was hanging out with a group of grade 4 girls. Their game was to draw a picture on the board, and someone had to guess what it was in English. I made sure to impress them all, by writing 'butterfly'(nabi/나비) in Korean, instead of drawing the picture. Naturally, they were all very ammused at my Korean abilities. One of the girls wrote 'hello' (annyeonghasaeyo/안영하세요) in order to see if I could, indeed, read it. Much to everyone's amusement, she spelled it wrong (annyeonghaseeyo/안영하시요). When I corrected her, the kids seemed pretty impressed. I did feel a little bad for showing her up though...

...or did I?

I've just realized that I'm bragging about my skills to say and spell 'hello' in Korean, and that I've been here for a year. What does that say?

Japan has apologized to Korea

2006-02-28T00:31:00.000+09:00

The Japanese have repeatedly attacked Korea over the last few centuries. As a result of this, Korean have an understanably hostility towards Japan. A few examples of Japan attacking Korea are:

From the Silla Dynasty (668-935 AD) to the ending states of the Goryeo Dynasty (935-1392), Japanese pirates were a problem in Korea. Near the end of the Goryeo Dynasty, Japan began to be more aggressive; actively sending military campains against Korea. General Yi Seonggye (later known as King Taejo) was largely responsible for driving the Japanese back. He was also the man to usher in the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1907).

Throughout the Joseon period, the Japanese invaded Korea many times. The most famous of these was throughout the 7-Year War (1592-1598), when Toyotomi Hideyoshi (many liken him to Hitler in many respects) was emperor of Japan. There are numerous stories of the Japanese brutally maiming Koreans during this time. General Yi Sun Shin (a hero for many Koreans. He was a really cool character, I must admit) was one of the main people, as well as allies in Ming Dynasty China, responsible for repelling the Japanese back to Nihongo with what many historians give the nod to as the first ironclad ship, called a 'turtle ship.'

The Joseon period ended in the early 20th century, when Japan created a protectorate (1907) over, and later annexed (1910), Korea. This lasted until the end of the Japanese Empire, following Japan surrendering in World War II (1945). There were countless atrocities committed by the Japanese during this time. You can get a small picture of this by reading my post, and looking at the pictures, of Seodaemun prison in Seoul. My heart feels heavy everytime I think about that place. You could also do an internet search on the rape/massacre of Nanking, to get an idea of what the Japanese did to Chinese people during this same time.

Yet, these events are all in the past. Although history should never be forgotten, those responsible for the sad events of the past are just that; past. Over and over again, I've heard from Korean people that Koreas would be more inclined to, well, not hate Japan so much if Japan would only apologize for it's actions against Korea. Well, that has happened a couple times that I can think of. The first instance that I came across was when I was in Hiroshima.

This statue, located in the Peace Park in Hiroshima, is a memorial dedicated to all of the Koreans that were killed by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. I don't know if the word apologize was specifically on there, but there was definetely a feeling of regret for the Koreans that were used as slave labourers during WWII.

The second time that I've came across an apology (this one was much more direct, although it covered a broad range of time) I came across at Wikipedia.org. The current Emperor of Japan, Emperor Akihito (the son of Hitohiro, of Emperor during World War II), acknowledged his countries actions against Korea; calling them "regretable." It reads that, "On December 23, 2001, during his annual birthday meeting with reporters, the emperor, in response to a reporter's question, remarked that he felt a "certain kinship with Korea", and went on to explain his feeling as resulting from the fact that the mother of Emperor Kammu (736–806) was a descendant of Korean dynasty King Muryeong of Baekje as documented in Shoku Nihongi. The emperor also noted that Koreans who migrated to Japan in ancient times introduced important aspects of culture and technology to the country, and then called upon his countrymen never to forget the regrettable fact that Japan’s exchanges with Korea have not all been so friendly." On top of this, Emperor Aihito, as well as his father, Emperor Hirohito (since learning who was there), have boycotted visiting Yasukuni Shrine, where a number of Japanese war criminals are enshrined there (the Japanese Prime Ministers (ie. PM Koizumi) have not boycotted visiting this shrine, much to the digust of Japan's Asian neighbors, however).

I'm not exactly sure what many Koreans are expecting. Do they want Japan to bow down to Korea? I'm not sure if they would fully accept any apology from Japan. Personally, I think Koreans should work to have a more friendly attitude towards Japan. In turn, I do think that Japan should be a little more sensitive to Korea in the way they do things. It's a sad situation, especially from the view of an outsider looking in.

The Friendly Taxi Driver

2006-02-27T21:14:00.000+09:00

I've been constantly amused (more so than usual) by taxi drivers lately. Due to my broken leg and crutches, drivers have been curious about my leg. More than often, since they can't speak English, they want to look at my leg and do a assessment for themselves. Today, much like a few other previous times, the driver actually reached behind himself, to feel up my leg; checking the situation (I sit in the back seat, because of my crutches). When they feel my half-cast, their curiousity is generally satisfied. I consider myself fortunate that nobody has tried to check the size of my 'gochu' yet.

A basket of gochus.

Boong-ga Boong-ga

2006-02-25T01:03:00.000+09:00

I've just found the ultimate arcade game. There is no explaination necessary; only pictures:

Gay Super Vomit

2006-02-25T00:22:00.000+09:00

One of my middle-school classes that I've taught (I say taught, because the class has changed enough in the past couple weeks that it seems like an entire different class), was an all boys class. There was probably eight or so boys in the class. As the boys are all in the middle of puberty, they are perverted at best.

Anywho, at the end of most classes, I do a fun activity (read: game) with my classes. One of the activities is called "The Never-ending sentence." The goal of the game is, as the title implies, to create as long of sentence as possible. This is done by having each student say one word; adding it only the sentence in a somewhat coheirant fashion.

I should've known better. Within two rounds, the sentence went something like this:

"The gay man went to the gay restaurant and ate three dogs, then he did a gay super vomit."

This was the tame part! Of course, I was laughing so hard that I didn't even try to stop it.

And people wonder why I'm the favorite teacher (the candy I give out might be a factor in this as well)!

Kind Koreans

2006-02-24T23:19:00.000+09:00

On my way home today from work, I was having a bit of trouble flagging down a cab (I was near Dave's house, which is closer to the express section of the road). A Korean couple, in their early-50s, saw that I might be waiting for a little while. The man honked to get my attention, and then asked me, "where you live?". I told him "woo-shin go hak-yo" (the nearby high school). He motioned me to get in. We talked more in Korean than in English in the car, as their English was nearly non-existant. They were super friendly though. The took me right to where I live (well, I got them to drop me off at the corner store near my place so I could get a beer), and were on their way after I said my thank yous.

A very pleasant experience!

I'm moving to Japan

2006-02-17T22:53:00.000+09:00

I'm moving to Tokyo (actually Saitama; a north sleeper city of Tokyo) the second week in March, three weeks from now.

I had originally applied for this job back in October. I didn't get the job at first, but one of the two people that were hired backed out, and I ended up getting called. The job is at a Lutheran private school in Saitama, Japan. It's quite a good job, as it's at an actual school. There's even a swimming pool. ^_^ I had the opportunity to fly to Tokyo last weekend (they paid for everything), in order to check out the school and have a personal interview. I'll technically be a missionary, although my job will be to teach English. The other new teacher and myself are replacing a married couple who'd been working there for 5 years. So, I might be working there for some time. I'll be making substantially more money than I am now, my apartment is beautiful, and, amongst many other benefits, I'll be chaperoning a group of Japanese students to America for a month every summer (LA and Pheonix). My teaching hours will be about 16 hours a week (maybe a couple more), and I'll be at school between 8am and 5pm. In other words, it's, as my friends here are putting it, an "actual job."

As for my current job, I finally had a chance to talk to my boss, Mr. Lee, today. He'd been busy in the last week, as he'd just got back from Australia, and has attending his son's university graduation ceremonies. So, yesterday, I decided to explain everything to Richard, my direct boss. He was cool with everything. He understood that I had a good job to go to, and he said that he'd tell Mr. Lee when he had a chance, and get him to speak with me.

Today (Friday), during an interview I was having with a couple of students, Mr. Lee came in and told me that everything was alright, and that I could talk to him after the class period was over. So, I sat down and talked to him for a bit. He was very understanding, and actually wished me congratulations and good luck. He said that I could leave when I wanted to, and that I could even have an extra day for packing if I wanted. He told me that I'd be paid everything on the Friday before I left. I was also told that if I were ever to come back to Ulsan, that I could have my job back. He was definetely better than my last boss! So, if anyone wants to come and work in Korea, Mr. Lee is a good guy to work for in my opinion. I'll actually be a bit sad to leave. I'll really miss a lot of the kids. They sure are great sometimes! That is one thing that I've learned over this past year; that I absolutely love children. I even love the older children (I'm referring to high school students, who aren't really children. Some of them are adults, whether their parents realize it or not!). They just might be the greatest thing on Earth, most of the time...

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
-Matthew 19:14

Here's a view of Tokyo from my hotel.

Another view.

The city feels like it never ends...

Those cars are on the wrong side of the road!

Hey, I have a view of Mount Fuji!

Fuji-san, in zooooom mode.

Fuji-san at dusk.

My hotel, at night.

Hey, it's Family Mart. Just like in Korea!

I was given a quick tour of the apartment that I'll be moving to. It's about a block, if that, from the largest Bonsai garden in the world (Omiya Bonsai Village). This is a quick blueprint of the place that I drew up on MS Paint. It should give my family an idea of where I'll be living.

The Drunk Guy

2006-02-17T22:40:00.000+09:00

Upon getting home from work today, at 1o pm, I noticed that two of the three motorbikes out front had fallen down. They both had damage (broken tail-lights, baggage compartment, etc.) My bike was the only one that was standing. It didn't take me too long to find the culpret; an extremely drunken guy sleeping in the middle of the mess. As one of the bikes belonged to a co-worker, I was rightfully pissed off. I didn't like the thought of my bike being damaged either. So, after poking the guy with my crutches a bit, and realizing that he wasn't responding to much of anything, I knocked on the door of the restaurant across the street from my apartment building, and pointed them in the direction of the drunken idiot. They tried to get his attention, but the guy was beyond drunk. They called the police, which showed up after a few minutes. They couldn't get his attention either. So, I just watched as they threw him into the car and drove off. The guys from the restaurant picked up the bikes (one of which had fallen on a car, but didn't seen to damage it; this was before the police arrived), and informed me that the police might be back later for questioning tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the picture is a bit blurry. I took this just as the police were arriving. This guy was toasted.

Busan 2008

2006-02-10T23:40:00.000+09:00

One of the highest skyscrapers in the world, Lotte World 2 Tower, in Busan, is currently under construction. According to Chosun news, it's supposed to reach a height of 494 metres. I've seen the construction zone many times now, which is walled off. Anyway, here's a couple renditions of the tower over the current downtown area:

The Second Best Blog on the Net

2006-02-10T13:26:00.000+09:00

Okay, I've found the second best blog on the entire internet, other than mine. It has absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH ASIA! In other words, if you don't want to meet one of my former dorm-mates from university, do not go there. On the other hand, if you want to see the homepage of one of the most splendid people living in the Republic of Alberta, click here: THE SPLENDID SEMINARIAN.

Silly Korean Gameshows

2006-02-10T03:04:00.000+09:00

Here's an example of what I get to watch on TV. Korean comedy is actually pretty funny sometimes!

In the hospital

2006-01-28T18:44:00.000+09:00

So, I ended up spending a total of four days and three nights in a hospital, in order to have my leg operated on. I had a titanium plate installed onto my broken fibula bone, on my left leg; just above the ankle.

My friend Bill picked me up and drove me to the hospital at around 11am on Monday morning (the 16th). Upon arriving, I told him that I'd be fine and that he could probably leave. So, he left. I went to the reception desk, and the guy there gave me a form to fill out (in Korean of course), and told me that I needed a friend to act as a beneficiary, in case I left without paying. Naturally, I had no idea why I needed someone until later. The reception guy didn't know any English, so I had to rely on my pitiful Korean skills to figure things out. I ended up using the guy's cell phone to call Bill and get him to bring his Korean wife in to help me out.

It took about half an hour for them to arrive. When they got there, the form was filled out, and I was led into a room for x-rays and blood testing. I was also to supply a urine test, but, as I had already done my business earlier, I couldn't fill the ol' cup.

Following that ordeal, I was laid down on a bed and had an I.V. jabbed into my right arm. I can't say that I enjoy those things very much. Bill's two boys were there as well, and were pretty interested in what I was going through. Maybe they'll learn to be careful, after watching me!

Next, I was led away into the pre-operating area. It was a large room with a bunch of other beds with people on them; some of them groaning. It was a very strange scene indeed. It was not comforting at all. All it needed was some blood on the wall and a few body parts thrown about, and it would've been a true horror scene.

After maybe 15 minutes or so, my doctor came in (who can speak English), and rolled me into the operating room. One of the nurses that was around said "fighting!" to me, in a sweet voice. I guess she didn't want me to die. That was sure nice of her.

The operating room was your standard operating room I guess. It was filled with doctors wearing doctor suits and surgical masks. There were tools around, a large light above me, sinks, etc. Before long, the doctor, surrounded by surgeons, nurses, etc., told me "chogum apaiyo", which means "this will hurt a bit". At that point, I had to sit up while I was injected via three spinal taps. It took about 15 minutes for my legs (about the belly button down) to become completely paralysed. In other words, the most beautiful woman could've walked into the room and started caressing me, and I'd wouldn't have done a thing for me. Next, I was given a mask to breath into. That's the last thing I remember.

I woke up a few hours later in this hospital room:

There were five beds. One guy, Seong-youn, was about 20 years old and knew some English, so I was able to talk to him some. Here's Seong-youn:

Two of the other guys were middle-aged. One of them knew some English, but wasn't too interested in conversation. The other didn't know a word. The last guy was a grumpy old guy. That's him sleeping in the picture. They all seemed to have leg injuries. Seong-youn wrecked his knee playing soccer, and got to spend a month in the hospital as a result. The middle-aged guy who didn't know any English had some heavy planks or something like that fall on him at an industrial job. He broke a leg, some ribs, his left hand, and some other things. He was in the hospital for a while too. The other guy who knew some English had a broken leg. The old guy in the corner had something wrong with his leg as well, although I'm not sure what.

Anyway, when I woke up, Bill and his family were hanging around. Here's Bill:

Bill was such a great guy to me. Everyday, well on Monday though Wednesday, he was keeping me company. He brought be McDonald's, juice, soup, etc. He brought me a book to read too. He really took care of me. His wife even got the cooks to bring me western food. They did alright with it. Eggs, sandwiches, bacon, rice and Coca-cola(???) for breakfast. Rice, seaweed strips, pork cuts, veggies, soup, Coca-cola for lunch and dinner. Apparently they've got the impression that we like Coca-cola in the west. I wonder where they got that from???

One of the evenings, I forget which one, Dennis, Mr. Lee (my boss), and four of my wonderful students came to visit me. That made me pretty happy. Mr. Lee gave me a sympathy 50,000 won, and one of my student's fathers works at the hospital, so I got an additional 50% off my bill.

Here's Soul, Olivia, Rachel and Catherine.

They're so sweet! They're seniors in high school this year. They're a pleasure to teach. They're all funny and speak good English, so we have a lot of fun in class.

Here's Dennis. He's been absolutely great to me as well. He's been helping me go grocery shopping, helps me with my laundry, splits cabs with me, keeps me company when everyone else is out partying, etc. I really owe this guy a few beers. Well, I lend him my Bible and took him to church at least.

On Wednesday night, the nurse came and took out my I.V. Koreans do not have arm here. Blake goes hve arm hair. Having the tape holding the I.V. on your arm ripped off HURTS! I now have a one inch square bold spot on my right arm. I finally got to leave on Thursday morning. My friend Mary, who's also been very kind to me, gave me a ride home.

I've since had the stitches removed, but I'll still be on crutches until at least the end of Feb.

Hoppin' around

2006-01-28T17:58:00.000+09:00

I just dug up a few pictures that I haven't posted up, from the past few weeks. Enjoy.

A restaurant that I went to with a bunch of my friends a couple of Saturdays ago.

It was a really nice place. Better than most that I've seen in Korea.

Inside, we ate beef stew. Good stuff.

Here's a small izakiya (Japanese bar) near my place. Dennis and I went there for some food and drinks.

I ate bugs (bondaegi/Silk worm larvae)! Also kabobs with fish, meat and veggies, along with udon noodle soup. We didn't forget the beer either!